As of the week ended May 19, American Idol's Blake Lewis has a slight advantage over Jordin Sparks based on volume of search terms, according to Hitwise data, writes MarketingCharts. Going into the show's finale on Wednesday, Blake is edging out Jordin by just 25%, whereas in the prior week his searches were 270% more numerous than Jordin's, Hitwise said.
Among the nuggets in Hitwise's analysis…
A greater percentage of search phrases that include Blake's name are related to his music and song choices than are those that contain Jordin's name.
In fact, less than 1% of Jordin's searches were related to her music, with the top search focused on her cover last week of "I Who Have Nothing"; whereas 2% Blake's searches, double that of Jordin's, focused on his music and beat-box style.
A large proportion - 5.9% - of search terms containing "jordin sparks" over the last four weeks referred to her physical stature, whereas some 4.25% of Blake's searches referred to sexual preference: i.e., "blake lewis gay."
Blake had a higher proportion of Google searches - 66% on Google, 27% on Yahoo. Jordin had a higher proportion of Yahoo searches than Blake - 41% of Jordin Sparks searches were on Yahoo, 53% on Google. (Yahoo Buzz is predicting that Jordin Sparks will win.)
MarketingCharts offers up some more data, including a chart.
As for Hitwise's prediction: "It's a tough call, but I'll put my neck out on this one…. I predict: advantage Blake," Hitwise General Manager of Global Research Bill Tancer said.
